War Becomes a Reality

July 16, 2011Posted inHistorical events

Going to See the Elephant, July 1861

By Paul Chouinard, Pres­i­dent of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

Editor’s Note: “Going to see the ele­phant” was an expres­sion used by enlis­tees to the Union Army describ­ing the expe­ri­ence of coun­try boys going off to war where they would expe­ri­ence life in ways they could not have imagined.
 
 
With the Capi­tol at Wash­ing­ton under threat of inva­sion by the Con­fed­er­ate Army, Union sol­diers trans­port the Unit­ed States Gov­ern­men­t’s stan­dard weights and mea­sures to St. Johns­bury for safe­keep­ing. Cap­tion and illus­tra­tion from the book Pio­neers In Indus­try Fair­banks, Morse & Co.
July of 1861 marked a turn­ing point. War became a grim real­i­ty with major bat­tles fought, result­ing in seri­ous injuries and loss of life. Men returned home bear­ing the phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal scars of war. Gen­er­al­ly, the real­i­ty of war did not hit home until news of local casu­al­ties arrived. The first Danville casu­al­ty was Charles D. Cook, who was just sev­en­teen years old when he died in the hos­pi­tal at Camp Grif­fin, Vir­ginia, of typhoid fever in Novem­ber of 1861. The opti­mism which had pre­vailed at the out­set of the war, regard­ing the fact that union forces would quick­ly tri­umph, began to fade.

Accord­ing to Susan­nah Clif­ford in Vil­lage In the Hills: “There was at least one fam­i­ly in Danville that had rel­a­tives fight­ing on both sides of the bat­tle lines, but in this par­tic­u­lar case kin­ship proved stronger than patri­o­tism. James Davis, son of Bliss Davis, was the only known Danville sol­dier to see the war from the Con­fed­er­ate side. James went west at age eigh­teen to live with his uncle in Ohio and then moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to study med­i­cine. When the war broke out in 1861, he joined the Con­fed­er­ate ser­vice as an assis­tant sur­geon of the Sev­enth Louisiana Reg­i­ment and lat­er became full sur­geon. He served through­out the war and was present at all the major bat­tles in north­ern Vir­ginia. James cousin, Alexan­der, who was with the Union army, was wound­ed at the bat­tle at Savage’s Sta­tion, cap­tured by the Con­fed­er­ate army and sent to Ander­son­ville Prison. While in prison, Alexan­der learned that his cousin was in Rich­mond, and he wrote to James to let him know of his sit­u­a­tion. James imme­di­ate­ly set to get­ting Alexan­der exchanged and even fur­nished him with trans­porta­tion back to his regiment.”

On the home front, local farm­ers and horse breed­ers in Danville helped fur­nish the cav­al­ry with fine hors­es. Danville’s Meri­no Sheep and Greenbank’s woolen mill con­tributed to the war effort, as did most oth­er tex­tile mills in New Eng­land, by pro­vid­ing woolen broad­cloth for the pro­duc­tion of blan­kets and uni­forms. In the autumn of 1861, Greenbank’s mill received fed­er­al con­tracts to man­u­fac­ture woolen broad­cloth for uniforms.

A pair of stir­rups made in Fair­banks fac­to­ry for use by Union cav­al­ry­men in the Civ­il War. Cap­tion and pho­to­graph from Pio­neers in Indus­try Fair­banks, Morse & Co.

Ear­ly in 1861, with the city of Wash­ing­ton in grave dan­ger, the offi­cial stan­dard weights of the Unit­ed States Gov­ern­ment were moved to St. Johns­bury for safe­keep­ing. E. and T. Fair­banks and Co. began the man­u­fac­ture of brass stir­rups and brass trim­mings for the North­ern cav­al­ry, as well as of artillery har­ness irons and curb bits. In addi­tion the offi­cials of the New York branch of E. and T. Fair­banks helped Gov­er­nor Eras­tus Fair­banks secure sup­plies for both infantry and cav­al­ry of the Ver­mont regiments.

THE NORTH STAR, July 13, 1861

THE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

It rec­om­mends that Con­gress pro­vide, by legal means, for “mak­ing this con­test a short and deci­sive one;” and the Pres­i­dent asks that body to pass an act to raise 400,000 men, and $400,000,000. to pros­e­cute the work. Should Con­gress grant it, we trust the great pow­er thus con­ferred, will be wise­ly used, in crush­ing rebel­lion, and giv­ing to this mighty con­flict a strict­ly nation­al and Union-restor­ing character.

Share

Optimism Prevails

June 1, 2011Posted inHistorical events, Historical people, Historical sites, NSM articles

Going to See the Elephant, part 3

The Bat­tle of Big Bethel was a fail­ure for Fed­er­al troops. The Ver­mont Civ­il War Hem­locks have raised funds to raise a sev­en foot mon­u­ment made of Barre gran­ite at the bat­tle site.
By Paul Chouinard, Pres­i­dent of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

“Going to see the ele­phant” was an expres­sion used by enlis­tees in the Union Army describ­ing the expe­ri­ence of coun­try boys going off to war where they would expe­ri­ence life in ways they could not have imagined.

At the out­set of the Civ­il War the stat­ed objec­tive of the North was to main­tain the Union. The Con­fed­er­ate States iden­ti­fied “states rights” as their major objec­tive which would give them the right to func­tion inde­pen­dent­ly. Main­stream his­to­ri­ans have com­mon­ly agreed that: “Every­thing stemmed from the slav­ery issue,” as stat­ed by Pro­fes­sor James McPher­son, whose book Bat­tle Cry of Free­dom is wide­ly judged to be the author­i­ta­tive one-vol­ume his­to­ry of the Civ­il War.

It was not until Sep­tem­ber 22, 1862, fol­low­ing the bloody Bat­tle of Anti­etam that Lin­coln issued a pre­lim­i­nary Procla­ma­tion of Eman­ci­pa­tion, which declared that all slaves in states or parts of states still fight­ing against the Unit­ed States on Jan­u­ary 1, 1863 would from that time on be for­ev­er eman­ci­pat­ed. On Jan­u­ary 1, 1863, Lin­coln issued his final Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion. How­ev­er, it did not free slaves in states then in the Union, the Bor­der States, nor cer­tain parts of Vir­ginia and Louisiana that were under Union con­trol. The Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion did have the effect of clear­ly iden­ti­fy­ing slav­ery as a vital issue of the war for both cit­i­zens of the Unit­ed States and for its allies.

THE NORTH STAR

JUNE 8, 1861

From Fortress Monroe

Great activ­i­ty is per­ceived at Fortress Mon­roe. Troops and ammu­ni­tion are con­stant­ly arriv­ing, the gar­ri­son now amount­ing to thir­teen thou­sand men, and large bod­ies were mov­ing into the inte­ri­or, it was thought, with the inten­tion of mak­ing for Nor­folk by a cir­cuitous route. Up to Thurs­day evening, slaves were still flock­ing to the fort. It was dis­cov­ered that thir­ty of the slaves belonged to one man in Rich­mond. He obtained per­mis­sion to vis­it the fort to con­fer with Gen­er­al But­ler on the sub­ject of get­ting his live prop­er­ty back. The Gen­er­al said they came there of their own accord, and could go back with him if they desired it. They were asked if they desired to return with their mas­ter. They quick­ly decid­ed that they pre­ferred to remain with the sol­diers in the fort…

Share

Steve Wakefield, a Living Historian

May 4, 2011Posted inDanville Green, Historical events, Historical people, Uncategorized

A Vermont Civil War Hemlock explains why he takes part

Steve Wake­field, liv­ing his­to­ri­an with the Ver­mont Civ­il War Hemlocks

By Sharon Lakey

At the 125th anniver­sary of the sur­ren­der of Lee’s army at Appo­mat­tox, Steve Wake­field, liv­ing his­to­ri­an, had one of those crys­talline moments. “I was with the 5th of New Hamp­shire at the head of the col­umn. When I turned around, I saw 3,000 fed­er­al troops stand­ing behind me, all per­fect­ly aligned. “The moment didn’t last long, maybe three sec­onds, but in those few sec­onds, I was there.” To be trans­port­ed through time—those are the sec­onds a liv­ing his­to­ri­an cherishes.

In 1963, Andy Fish­er, a his­to­ry teacher in Con­cord, VT, attend­ed the 100th obser­vance of the Bat­tle of Get­tys­burg, a reen­act­ment of the bat­tle that turned the tide in the Civ­il War. The event was so inspir­ing to him, he returned home to cre­ate the Ver­mont Civ­il War Hem­locks, a non-prof­it group whose goal is edu­ca­tion. Three years lat­er, 16-year-old Steve Wake­field went to one of the group’s meet­ings and joined. He was uni­formed and equipped in 1971 and took part in his first reen­act­ment that year.

“I don’t like the term reen­act­ment,” said Wake­field. “I am a liv­ing his­to­ri­an.” He goes on to explain that to reen­act implies an indi­vid­ual is act­ing. “We don’t act; dur­ing an event, we actu­al­ly live the expe­ri­ence 24-hours a day. At night, we don’t retire to the tent with a beer cool­er.” And any­one who has wit­nessed the Hem­locks in action, per­haps in some­thing as sim­ple as a parade, rec­og­nizes imme­di­ate­ly that they are liv­ing in the moment, and it is not tak­en lightly.

Share